Unico Properties opened Washington state’s first four electric vehicle charging stations Wednesday in the parking garage at Rainier Square under the Department of Energy's new EV Project program.

The garage is located in downtown Seattle on Union Street between Fourth and Fifth Avenues.

Unico will also be installing public charging stations in downtown Bellevue at Key Center, 601 108th Ave. N.E., and Skyline Tower, 10900 N.E. 4th St., and in Tacoma at Wells Fargo Plaza, 1201 Pacific Ave. Unico will also install an electric vehicle charging station in Portland at the U.S. Bancorp Tower at 111 S.W. 5th Ave.

The charging stations are being installed in 18 cities in six states nationwide as part of a partnership between the U.S. Department of Energy and ECOtotality, a publicly traded San Francisco company that’s helping set up charging stations in Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona and Tennessee. The $230 million program will create a network of 15,000 residential and public charging stations in the participating states.

The Level II charging stations take four to six hours to recharge a fully depleted battery, but partially depleted batteries can be recharged in less time.

If all three of the public charging stations at Rainier Square are being used, cars can be put on a waiting list for the first available charger.

The charging stations do not accept credit card payments. Users will need to set up an RFID (Radio Frequency Identification Device) tag account online — the same technology that’s being used for the SR-520 bridge tolls — to use the stations. For more information, visit the EVO Project website.